Cases

Section 440.093, Florida Statutes 2003, discusses the four situations when mental or nervous injuries arise that may or may not be compensable.  Because of the fact that a decision in this case required the court to interpret and apply Section 440.093, Florida Statutes, appellate review is de novo.  The following are the four psychiatric types of injury (referred to in the statute has "mental or nervous injuries") that may or may not be compensable:

1.  Section 440.093(1), Florida Statutes, states that a mental or nervous injury due to stress, fright or excitement only is not an injury by accident arising out of the employment.  An example of this type of injury is where an employee experiences mental trauma after being robbed at gun point but does not suffer a physical injury requiring medical treatment or a situation where an employee suffers a mental or nervous injury as a consequence of witnessing some horrific event at the workplace.

2.  Section 440.093(2), Florida Statutes, mental or nervous injuries that accompany a separate physical injury serious enough to require medical treatment. In this instance, the claimant suffers a physical injury and a separate mental or nervous injury.  For example, if an employee in the course of employment is sexually assaulted in the workplace and suffers a physical injury that requires medical treatment, the physical injury is certainly compensable.  If at the same time, the employee suffers a mental or nervous injury separate and apart from the physical injury, the mental or nervous injury would be compensable.  In this instance, the employee would have simultaneously suffered two compensable workplace injuries:  one physical and one mental.

3.  Section 440.093(1), Florida Statutes, a physical injury resulting from mental or nervous injuries unaccompanied by physical trauma requiring medical treatment are not compensable.  Under this provision, an employee will not receive compensation for a physical injury if that physical injury occurred solely and as a result of the employee experiencing mental or nervous trauma at the workplace.  For example, in the situation where a claimant suffers a heart attack because of job related stress, the heart attack would not be compensable.  The physical injury (the heart attack) was caused by the mental or nervous injury (stress, fright or excitement) and would not be compensable.

4.  Section 440.093(2), Florida Statutes.  Mental or nervous injuries which are the manifestation of a physical injury otherwise compensable under Chapter 440 would be compensable.  A "manifestation" is a disease or infection that "naturally or unavoidably" results from an initial compensable workplace injury.  Under this provision, an employee who suffers an initial physical injury requiring medical treatment may recover for an mental or nervous injury that manifests, so long as the initial physical injury is the major contributing cause of the mental or nervous injury.  For example, if an employee loses a limb operating heavy machinery and over time the loss of the limb causes the employee to become clinically depressed or mentally unstable (a nature manifestation of the physical injury) the mental or nervous injury is compensable.  Another example is where an employee suffers a physical injury that causes long term chronic pain.  If the chronic pain eventually results in the employee suffering a mental or nervous injury requiring treatment, the mental or nervous injury would be compensable as the manifestation of the physical injury.

In this case, JCC's order denying benefits reversed and remanded for further proceedings.  The claimant presented evidence relating directly to the type of mental or nervous injury defined in the above referenced second description of a compensable mental injury but made an argument based on the type of injury as defined in the fourth type of mental injury referenced above, i.e., as it related to the major contributing cause of the claimant's mental injuries.